


and andromeda drowned

by ShameGame



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst, Character Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, Injury, M/M, Mystery, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24906568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShameGame/pseuds/ShameGame
Summary: In a town as old and superstitious as Hyrule, the ability to see the things that go bump in the night is very,veryvaluable.Considering his circumstances though, Link has a hard time feeling lucky.
Relationships: Link & Mipha (Legend of Zelda), Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Prince Sidon
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	and andromeda drowned

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for the folks who want them:
> 
> \- descriptions of violence (not extremely graphic, but be warned)  
> \- fairly graphic description of a corpse   
> \- descriptions of slight injury  
> \- poisoning and subsequent vomiting (brief mention)

A grocery store. 

A boutique.

The outdoor patio of a restaurant. 

Link plows through it all, and the townsfolk take it in without blinking. Even newer residents know better than to complain, because Link’s name always comes up when the greeting committee brings their fresh-baked goods and stiff smiles, and they always give the same spiel: 

He’s Hyrule’s bloodhound, and sometimes there’s collateral between him and whatever it is that he’s hunting down. 

In this case the thing he’s running after is _annoyingly fast._ It should’ve tired out three blocks ago considering it’s barely the height of his mid-shin, but it keeps sprinting and sprinting and sprinting, dragging a trail of ooze behind it.

He hip-checks the display of a flower shop and thanks Hylia when nothing shatters behind him. Someone to his left cheers him on. It doesn’t do much to boost his morale; all he can think about is how badly he wants to stop and catch his breath.

But the texts and emails about this thing had been pretty desperate. Ghosts are not to be trifled with in a town as old as this one, though when they actively start doing harm, they have to go. 

The creature has to slow down for a split second as it shifts to round a corner. Link takes the window of opportunity and dives forward, managing to catch it around the torso.

The regret is instantaneous. His fingers sink deep, deep into the muck coating the thing, and everything smells like roadkill left in the sun for too long no matter how hard he focuses on breathing through his mouth. It wrenches around to try and snap at him—its teeth are blacker than charcoal while its singular eye is made of blue-black-blue-black rings that almost make him dizzy—it takes a huge amount of effort to clamp down the sudden urge to flinch.

Instead, he tries repositioning his hands to wrestle the enchanted bag out of his pocket. 

It shrieks at him as he presses it back-first to his chest, giving it a tight, one-armed hug that coats his entire front with a rancid grime. Link might have to burn his flannel after all this, but he tries to stay positive: it’s a small miracle that the creature hasn’t turned his forearm into Swiss cheese yet.

His left hand successfully fishes the canvas bag out and pries it open. He tries leaning forward, easing the creature into the bag’s opening when he notices something kind of… Strange.

The thing is practically vibrating against him.

Link peers at its face again, noting that the rings in its eyes are flashing faster and faster as the creature shakes more and more. It looks _extremely_ mad. Some sort of instinct—probably the one that’s managed to keep him alive for so long—suddenly shouts, _CLOSE YOUR EYES._

He doesn’t do it fast enough.

And the thing pulses a violent shade of pink before exploding on him.

The concrete is rough against his back the next time he blinks. The ooze is everywhere except the inside of his mouth. It’s coating the ground, his face, a resident who’s tip-toeing by—not that they notice it. 

The creature, now significantly smaller and more sinew-y, scrambles out of his arms all too easily, and darts around the corner. 

Link mouths a swear before throwing himself back onto his feet and giving chase. Again. 

He doesn’t get far, considering around the corner, there’s an alleyway. In the alleyway, there’s a storm drain. At the lip of the storm drain, there’s a thick, black residue that makes Link’s mouth go dry in disappointment.

He slumps against the nearest brick wall.

_...Great._

* * *

Zelda, predictably, is not happy about the news. 

“What do you mean,” she says slowly, “ _it exploded on you?”_

 _‘Asking about it again and again isn’t going to change what happened,’_ Link signs back dryly. _‘I was holding it. I was going to stuff it in my bag. Then it just,’_ he mimics an explosion with his hands before hazarding a quick stir of his risotto, keeping his eyes down.

He can still feel Zelda staring. “Then it slipped out of your hands and went down a drain.”

_‘Right into the sewer.’_

“Right… Into the sewer.” 

A beat. 

“Oh Hylia, that can’t be good.” 

She turns towards Link’s hastily scribbled notes for the thousandth time, trying to thumb at the papers’ corners despite the way her hands phase through them. In the pile, there’s a random spattering of quick observations and theories on the ghost—anything that’d come to Link’s mind, honestly—which are failing to do anything to soothe the bonfire that is Zelda’s nerves. The apartment is getting blinded by a brighter and brighter iridescent light as she’s been getting more and more worked up, unfamiliar with whatever it is that Link has been describing. A quick glance shows that there’s a trickle of blood slinking down from the dent on her forehead. She doesn’t seem to notice that it’s dripping into her eyes.

Bringing it up will just make her more upset, so he scrubs at his face to hide his frown instead.

 _‘It could just be the spirit of a dead pet?’_ he offers. 

Zelda gives him a no-nonsense look.

He grudgingly goes back to making his risotto.

This isn’t the first time they’ve stumbled into something new. For the first few years of Zelda’s studies, _everything_ was new; they would have to dig through the library on a day-to-day basis just to keep up to date with all the things that haunted Hyrule. Link had had to take a few art classes just for the sake of being able to depict what he was seeing to Zelda. Sometimes he would walk into the kitchen past midnight and see her huddled at the table, phone pressed to her ear and diligently taking notes as Urbosa recounted some of the town’s older folk tales—”research,” she’d mouthed when she’d noticed him staring.

The novelty of it all eventually became a norm, and they had both gotten fairly comfortable with the idea of dealing with a few unknowns.

 _Well,_ Link thinks, watching Zelda frantically paw at his notes. _Maybe I was a bit hasty with that assumption._

He wordlessly reaches over and flips some pages for her; she hums her thanks. When she seems settled in, he pours some more broth into his pan, and keeps stirring.

It makes sense, he guesses. This is the first unfamiliar case they’ve dealt with since the others had gone missing—or died, in Zelda’s case—and that meant Link was the last and only line of defense. If he got his spine snapped or brains fried or straight-up killed because of some rash, uninformed decision involving a strange ghost, Hyrule would be left to its own fate. And judging by the literature, it wouldn’t be anything good.

But still. 

The thing he had chased down today weighed about as much as a toaster _._ It’s proven itself to be capable of harming small animals and giving residents slight migraines—not causing total destruction.

Brows furrowed, he sprinkles cheese over his dish and looks up.

 _‘Do you really think it’ll keep causing problems?’_ he asks. _‘I must’ve rattled it at least a little bit today. It might stop being aggressive altogether.’_

Zelda’s eyes only stay on him long enough to finish his question before skirting back down to the notes. “That doesn’t matter much,” she answers. “What matters is if its extended presence is going to throw Hyrule off-balance.”

Link gives a long, drawn-out sigh. _‘I’m assuming you want me to grab the Doomsday book—?’_

“—Can you grab _Hyrule’s Eschaton_?”

 _Hyrule’s Eschaton_ never says anything encouraging. It is the perfect tool for sending someone with mild paranoia into a full-on conspiratorial spiral. Link has managed to keep the book squirreled away in Zelda’s room for well over a year, and is not happy to drag it out now.

He turns off the stovetop. _‘Fine.’_

As little as he likes going into Zelda’s room (What if he nudges something important out of place? What if his presence in the room makes her smell fade even faster?), he gets the book from its dust-covered shelf, and opens it on the kitchen table, turning to its index. It’s in some archaic language he doesn’t understand, so he just waits for Zelda’s instructions, rather than trying to find the right section himself.

She hovers by his shoulder. “Harbingers. Page 205.”

The numbering is in numerals. It takes an extra few moments to discover that page 205 has been ripped out, much like the majority of the pages near the back of the _Eschaton_. In fact, the only informational page following 205 still present within the book is page 215, depicting a hulking boar with pink fire spewing from its face and flanks. 

_Dark Beast: the final threat,_ Zelda had taken the liberty of writing at the bottom of that page in English.

They both blink at it.

“Okay. Now try Common Specters: page 35.”

They go back and forth between sections. The appendix is useless; according to Zelda, there’s no direct translation for “ooze,” so their search is much more painstaking. They keep hitting and missing and hitting and missing until the book’s been combed through from front to back. 

Link feels a bit better afterwards. If there’s no appearance of the ghost within the book, then it must be an inconsequential threat to Hyrule. He still needs to catch it, but his timeline is less urgent. 

Zelda, on the other hand, has a steadily-growing expression of dread. Thankfully it’s currently controlled enough that Link can pretend he doesn’t see it.

 _‘I guess we’ll have to conduct our own research,’_ he concludes, eager to put the book back out of her reach and get back to eating his meal.

“Or search even harder elsewhere,” Zelda offers quietly. But she doesn’t comment as he takes the book away, back to her room.

Outside, a steady trickle of rain begins.

* * *

He settles on talking to the townspeople. It’s not easy to find a resident of Hyrule who’s comfortable speaking of the ghosts that haunt the town (—they pay him so that they won’t have to think about that particular issue, after all—), but many of the town elders have gotten bold in their old age. 

One insists that logically, the ghost must be some deceased custodian. “I remember a janitor of Hyrule’s Elementary passing away in the 1980s,” he tells Link. “Hit his head on a stall door while cleaning a restroom and bled out. Nasty business.”

Link doesn’t want to point out that the assumption that a janitor would turn into an ooze monster is just a little bit insulting.

Another fixates on the detail involving the ghost’s sewer-dwelling. “Plenty of folks have died down there,” he explains. “In a town with as many centuries under its belt as this one, a sewer accident would definitely spawn a specter or two.” A beat. “Explains the small animals getting attacked, too. Can’t imagine someone who died down there would like the rats much.”

That doesn’t explain the migraines or the ghost’s insignificant size, though. Link dutifully writes down the commentary anyways.

The last elder he speaks to is a little different. She’s decades older than many of the others, and much more soft-spoken. She doesn’t have much to say about the ooze, but her face flashes with a spark of recognition when he talks about ringed eyes, and the ghost’s generally unpleasant symptoms.

“Kind of reminds me of a wives’ tale I heard as a kid,” she murmurs. “Must’ve been almost a hundred years ago.”

 _‘Yeah?’_ Link prompts her.

“I thought it was just a scary story meant to keep us from going outside at night, or leaving any pets out there. It wasn’t even considered a proper ghost, from what I remember. Just a ball of evil energy. All that talk about splitting headaches, frightened dogs, and eyes glowing in the dark was enough to keep me in bed.”

 _‘Seems scary enough,’_ Link agrees, and her one comment about it being an improper ghost makes his skin itch with curiosity. _‘Did it have a name?’_

She squints. Gives a slow, unsure nod. “My Ma used to say that it left a trail of spoiled crops and flowers wherever it went. Pretty sure she called it the Blight.”

Link writes in his chicken-scratch, _BLIGHT._ It’s not much, but it’s a start.

* * *

It takes another day or two before the phone calls start pouring in.

Zelda’s phone had been designated for business calls for obvious reasons, though even after her death, it had made sense to keep it in use—if there was one generic phone number cemented into every Hyrule resident’s mind, it was probably Zelda’s. No point in attempting to retrain everyone into remembering something different.

People have been sensitive in contacting Link through it. Texts seem to be the main method of asking for help, though emails and voicemails have bumped up in popularity, too. There’ve even been a few occasions where a kid would come knock on his apartment door, sent as a messenger of a less tech-savvy resident.

But fear makes people dumb. And Link isn’t cruel enough to put the phone on silent, even for calls at 5 a.m.

There’s the first phone call about a traumatized cat who came home after it went missing for three days; it was covered in scratches, refused to eat, and smelled like a sewer. Then another about black ooze seeping from the drains in the resident’s bathroom. Next, a mother who can’t seem to cure her daughter’s persistent headaches no matter how much chicken soup and painkillers she’d given her.

Not one of them seems to realize that he’s unable to answer. Or maybe they do, and they’re happy to avoid any back-talk. They call, say their piece, clearly imply that he needs to fix it, and then hang up. 

He grits his teeth, and digs through the library more, because it’s obvious what’s responsible. If the so-called Blight started as an old wives’ tale, Urbosa would probably have had some good information. Her family doesn’t like talking to him though. He doesn’t blame them.

More calls. A farmer says that his crops refuse to grow—their roots keep rotting. A university student thinks his dorm room’s haunted because he can’t sleep there, his head is killing him. Someone tells him about all the dead fish they’ve found floating in their pond.

Link chases after these sightings. He bikes from place to place to place to find the same black residue and the same frightened residents every time. He tells Zelda about the rising frequency of these reports, and she doesn’t outright say, “ _I told you so,”_ but he feels the sentence buried under her advice. He sleeps less. He reads more.

More calls. “It’s been raining a lot, hasn’t it?” one caller asks, and it’s so off-topic that Link immediately dismisses them. Not for long, though. “Almost two weeks of this awful downpour, and no sign of it stopping,” another caller agrees less than a day later. A third adds, “There’s something seriously wrong with this rain.”

He starts dreaming about getting trapped in the sewers, choking on the dirty rainwater that sloshes down from the storm drainage, and consistently wakes up with an ache in his chest. He wonders what Mipha would prescribe for bad dreams.

The calls about the rain start to overwhelm the other reports, much to his frustration; there’s no telling if the Blight is slowing its pace, or is being swept aside in favor of some unnatural weather. He slaps his own cell number up around hotspots in town, asking specifically for reports of telltale signs of the Blight— _TEXT, DO NOT CALL,_ he adds as an afterthought. It helps a bit, though the tips are slow, usually sent hours after the sighting. He still visits each spot and takes notes. 

He’s coming back from one such check-in, blinking against the rainwater dripping into his eyes, when a car to his left honks to his left. He almost shoots out of his skin in response, urging himself to keep a straight face as the car pulls closer. Squinting through the downpour to try and single out the driver doesn’t work well, so he slows to a stop, and waits for them to roll down their window. 

The truck is battered and dirty with a bed full of construction tools. That should’ve been a large enough clue for Link, but he still manages to be surprised to see Daruk’s son peer out from the carriage. 

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry to spook ya.”

Link wishes he was somewhere else right now. Daruk’s family has been the nicest of them all following last year’s incident, though Link really doesn’t deserve their friendliness. They force smiles for him, offer free apartment repairs sometimes, and pointedly refuse to let him drift into acquaintanceship, but he knows he’s not a replacement for Daruk. There’s probably some resentment buried deep, deep in there, anger that Link is around and Daruk is not. A sour taste bubbles up in his mouth throughout any of their conversations.

He clears his throat. _‘No worries. Can I help you?’_

Daruk’s son barks out a laugh. “No, no, no help needed here. I just noticed you were stuck out in the rain and reckoned you might want to ride home in something a little drier?”

It’s a nice thought. The rain seeps through his hair and clothes almost maliciously; it makes him itch and shiver all at once. But the idea of climbing into that truck with its metal walls that could bend inwards, folding into itself and stabbing into Link like a glorified pin cushion forces a chill down his spine that’s _much_ more unpleasant. 

_‘That’s really kind of you,’_ he signs, smiling. _‘But I think I’m okay. The rain’s nice.’_

Daruk’s son raises a brow, but he doesn’t push Link. “Well,” he says. “I won’t get in the way of your fun then.”

_‘Thanks for the offer anyways.’_

He gets a salute in response, and a casual, “Good luck with the ghoul hunting, brother.” Then the window rolls up, and the truck pulls away, leaving Link alone by the roadside. 

Link takes seven seconds to inhale. Ten seconds to exhale. Closes his eyes just long enough for the dull pain near the side of his skull to ease up. He hops back onto his bike, and continues making his way home, slowly but surely.

* * *

It takes another week before he gets anything promising. It comes in the form of a text to his own phone—three words long and exciting because it _doesn’t report anything._ It leaves some potential; it almost sounds as if the event hasn’t happened yet. Link might get to the scene before the Blight does. 

He scrambles off the couch the moment the implications of the message register in his brain, piles any easy-to-carry enchanted equipment he can think of in his pack, writes an almost-incoherent note for Zelda whenever she wakes up next, and sprints to grab his bike.

* * *

The memorial was built by the lakeside, trinkets and string lights piled into a gazebo—the one that he and the others had liked gathering at in the late summer. The town council had emailed him asking about the others’ favorite flowers, fond short memories, anything, up until they realized that he wasn’t ever going to respond. Then the project was left entirely to the interpretation of each of the victims’ families. 

Link avoids it, typically. Looking at the portraits, reading the plaques—it’s like punching a bruise. He had forced himself to attend the grand opening on the request of Zelda’s father back in February, and he had been in a daze the whole time, pet and coddled and caressed by the other attendees who talked at him in that annoying, pitying tone reserved for lost children or kicked dogs. They had meant well, but it had just made him feel worse.

Now he’s sitting at the lake’s shore in the rain, ignoring the memorial from afar. The text hadn’t had many details, but the location wasn’t a mystery at all. 

_‘Watch Lanayru Lake.’_

So he watches the lake. Sort of. It’s less of a stakeout, and more of a test of patience; Link uses his iron knife to mess with a thick tree branch he’d found laying around, carving triangles and crappy horses into the wet wood. His eyes flicker up to the lake every minute or so. The water ripples from the rain, but nothing happens.

He carves more horses, up until 11 p.m., getting to a point where his carvings are halfway decent when a smell catches in the back of his throat. It’s like spoiled meat paired with ozone, something natural tied into something unnatural in an uncanny way that has Link looking around wildly. He doesn’t have to search far. Just offshore, dead fish are drifting up to the water’s surface, getting dragged closer to him by the wakes.

Link studies the lake again. 

This time, he’s actually rewarded for it.

By the gazebo, a figure lifts itself out of the water, its silhouette made hazy by the rain and the lights of the memorial. Even from here, it’s not hard to see how it struggles with its movements, awkward in hauling itself over the railing of the structure, though it does land on its feet. Link eases himself up, leaving his bike and pack on the bank. 

It doesn’t look like the ghost he’s been looking for at all. He hadn’t posted his number around town for anything other than reports of sightings, so why had he been sent here?

He fiddles with his knife, and stalks closer.

The figure moves away from the railing, taking its time in browsing each of the sections within the gazebo. Revali’s spot is to its immediate left; it brushes its hands over the glittering trinkets without much thought before trekking straight to Urbosa’s silks and gems to do the same thing. There’s an iron-y taste in Link’s mouth where he’s started chewing the inside of his cheek. People—town residents and ghosts alike—know better than to meddle with gestures for the dead. This is a bad sign.

Zelda’s voice grates through his head, _“You’re being reckless again,”_ but the closer he gets and the more he can see, the more he can ignore her, and the tighter the knot in his chest gets. 

Whatever it is, it’s been pummeled by the elements. Blistered green-black skin, bloated limbs, bleach-pale extremities. The shine from a growing puddle on the gazebo’s floor tells him that the thing is dripping water, even now. Is it a drowning victim? That doesn’t make much sense though; he hasn’t seen a reported drowning in years. 

The figure stumbles over to Daruk’s stone carvings, shifting items around as it paws through the display with some sort of purpose, but not taking anything. It goes next to Zelda’s spot, rife with journals and flowers. Its hands ghost over her portrait for a second, almost thoughtfully, and Link has to urge himself not to shout, force himself to stay content with sneaking closer. He sweeps right, approaching the entrance of the gazebo.

The remaining memorial is Mipha’s. The Ruta family had put a great deal of their resources into her space, and as a result, even in the nighttime her portrait is beautiful, given a soft glow thanks to the illuminated stones scattered across her table. The seashells and herbs are arranged carefully. Link knows that someone comes by frequently to replace the herbs when they wither, picking fresh ones.

The figure falters in front of this table.

Link holds his breath. 

Then it balls its hands into white-knuckled fists, and those fists drive down, sending the shells and herbs on the table flying to the ground. The portrait gets tossed aside, too. The figure hones in on the stones, picking through each and every one almost desperately, but Link doesn’t want to find more questions to ask. He _sprints._

The closer he gets, the more he sees. 

A feminine outline, about his height. 

Waterlogged rags for clothes. 

Long, red hair plastered to the creature’s skull.

He grips it by its arm and yanks it to face him, knife at the ready— 

—Only to see a half-rotten, furious Mipha staring back.

Time stumbles to a halt.

And oh, that hesitation costs him. 

The hot, angry drag of nails across his face snaps him back into the present; his hands fly up to get her by the arms, shoving her into the rail to his left. An awful, rattling sound comes from her throat all while Link begs his own throat to let him say something, _anything._

Now that he knows who he’s facing, every movement and twitch from her is a telegraphic message; he’s sparred with her enough to know her tells. It helps just as much as it sends him in an absolute tailspin of despair with a small voice in his head chanting, _Mipha no, Mipha please._

She moves to push herself from the railing. Link dances his way backwards, towards the center of the gazebo and away from her. He doesn’t know what to do—all he has in terms of weaponry is his knife, and it’s not like he’s going to stab her. Maybe he should try to restrain her? He has enchanted rope somewhere in his bag…

There’s a raise of her shoulders, and Link jerks to the side as she charges. They’re about the same size, but she’s fully capable of grappling him and winning in a strength-contest, considering the years of training that came with handling a spear. He’s going to have to settle with being fast. 

She starts sailing past, and Link plays out the next few steps in his head. He’ll grab her by the torso and knock her legs out with a kick, forcing her to the ground. He’ll sit on her back, pin her arms to her side with his knees, then do his best to knock her out without giving her a severe head injury. Then he can go get his rope, tie her up, and drag her back to Zelda. It’s a safe plan. Not the most clever, but Link has always been more practical.

Something threads through his hair. Then the scene actually plays out like so:

She gets a good grip on his too-long hair at the last second. Link realizes this right before getting his whole body twisted around unceremoniously, putting his back to her, and leaving him dangerously unbalanced. His beaten-up boots skitter against the shattered shells and lakewater. He slams onto the floor spine-first, his weight dragging her down with him. Her hands bang into the flooring on either side of his head, and he’s staring up at her, looking at her face upside-down.

(“Haha!” she laughs from above him, the loudest he’s ever heard her. “It seems I’ve won!”

His back aches from being knocked over and her sparring staff is jammed against his throat, but he grins back. _‘Nah, that last move wasn’t fair.’_

“I’m quite sure that move qualified as fair play.”

_‘Nope, rematch.’_

“Well, if you _insist—”_ )

Link groans. He really needs a haircut. 

Mipha doesn’t seem to be suffering in the same sense that he is. Her face is pinched under some invisible strain, freckles barely visible under the layer of green-black rot and lake muck. She leans in closer, teeth gnashing, but Link can’t stop looking at her eyes in their blue-black-blue-black-ringed entirety and feeling a newly-familiar sense of nausea. 

He gets his hands on her sternum and pushes up, a shaky attempt at keeping her away. She’s heavier, though. Heavier, and much more hellbent on making him die.

( _‘It’s like getting pinned by a bag of bricks,’_ he complains, and she offers an apologetic smile from her perch on his stomach. The sparring staff is poking into his ribs this time. _‘Where’d you get all this muscle from? I need some.’_

A soft chuckle. “Join the swim team. It will do wonders for you.”)

Link tucks his knees up—maybe he can use his feet?—and gives a last-ditch effort at forcing her off of him, trying to plant his heels on her shoulders, keeping his eyes shut as she spews lakewater everywhere. 

Then her weight shifts, she flails, and she’s gone. 

Link cracks an eye open just in time to watch her skid across the floor, shadowed by a new, very large figure. Her back hits the railing again. Link rolls to his side, hastily getting to his feet. His understanding of the situation is starting to crack under the pressure— _ghosts can’t be physically grabbed by normal folks, so what’s going on?_

She doesn’t seem to be taking this new development well, either. Her head swivels between him and the stranger, gauging the fairness of this fight all while still making that awful, awful noise. He can see the split-second where she decides that her goal is not worth the two-to-one hassle. 

Faster than he’d think possible, she uses the railing to haul herself up, and cartwheels over the side, back into the lake with a graceless _splash._

 _Oh, no you don’t,_ Link thinks, practically seeing red. 

He sprints past the new figure and clambers onto the railing, feet slightly wobbly but not enough to make him hesitate, swings his arms back, leans forward—

—A pair of arms grab him around the midsection. 

“No, no, that seems ill-advised!” a voice worries from behind, “I would rather not have to fish your body from the lake tomorrow morning, if that’s alright.”

Link gets dragged off of the railing, back into the gazebo. He makes a point of thrashing the entire time, even though his head is starting to throb at the temples and there’s something wet itching a path from his cheek to the top of his lip.

As soon as his feet touch the ground he slaps the stranger away to whirl around, teeth bared, and realizes a few things: 

The stranger is extremely tall. 

Red-haired. 

Straight-backed in a way only Hyrule’s aristocrats like to stand. 

Sharp-eyed and sun-touched, with freckles he associates with someone else’s face—the lightning bolt of grief that hits Link paired with the headache makes him stumble. 

Mipha’s kid brother reaches out automatically to grab Link’s upper arm, steadying him.

“Hello,” he breathes. “This is awkward, hm?”

Link gives an ugly snort, spraying flecks of blood all down the front of his shirt. _‘Who cares about being awkward at this point.’_ A pause. _‘You could see her? You could_ grab _her?’_

Sidon makes a noncommittal sound. “I suppose so.”

But that isn’t how this works; Link’s never had a ghost that _other_ people could see and touch, unless…

He squints at Sidon. _‘You’re not dead, right?’_

Sidon jolts, “What? No!”

_‘Any near death experiences?’_

“Besides the encounter two minutes ago, no.”

 _‘Are you sure—?’_ Another wave of pain washes over Link and he holds himself still, letting it drift through instead of botching his words. It’s not even close to the worst pain he’s experienced, and the fact that it still manages to scramble his thoughts makes his blood boil a bit.

When he finds the willpower to lift his head, he meets Sidon’s stare. “I don’t think we should spend any longer going back and forth on this. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

 _‘No,’_ Link waves him off, _‘it’s just a scratch.’_

The large, manicured hand finally leaves Link’s arm, hovering just long enough to make sure Link doesn’t collapse without it; Link has to bite down the urge to snap at Sidon for mother-henning. Instead, he drags a fist through his sweat-drenched hair, and stalks away from the gazebo, too wired up to care about how the mess will be interpreted tomorrow. He has to talk to Zelda. 

Sidon is quick to follow. He’s got a foot on Link in terms of height, so it doesn’t take long until he’s flanking Link’s side.

“I feel responsible for this outcome,” he starts. “I was too vague with my information. I was worried that what I was seeing wasn’t entirely accurate because of personal reservations and didn’t want to give false expectations.” A self-deprecating laugh. “Sibling grief, and all that.”

So he _had_ been the one to send the text.

Link’s hands feel uncoordinated as he replies, _‘This isn’t the first time she’s appeared,’_ to which Sidon nods. 

“She’s been wandering around the lake for three nights now. She hadn’t approached the memorial up until today, though. It’s odd.”

They reach Link’s bike, abandoned in the sand and coated in grime. There isn’t room in Link’s head to think Sidon’s comment through, as stuffed as it is with cotton and too-warm water. Instead, he shoulders his pack, then picks up his bike and straddles it, bracing a foot on a pedal.

Sidon finally falters. “...Shouldn’t we talk a little more thoroughly before you leave?”

He’s right and all. Link should be gathering all the intel he can right now, considering what he just survived through is _most definitely_ unprecedented, but the counterargument is just as, if not more compelling:

Link is really tired. 

It takes a couple of bleary blinks before he realizes he’s supposed to respond to Sidon. Oops.

 _‘You have my phone number,’_ he settles on. _‘Text that.’_

Not a satisfactory answer, apparently. Sidon’s posture goes stiff. “I was hoping for a few answers now, if possible.”

The persistence is so, so aggravating _._ Link’s anger boils up and makes his whole body go hot—hot like eight hours in the sun, like the exhale of a pissed-off dog, like a stab wound—hot enough to make him stumble over himself. He really shouldn’t be so defensive. Why is he being so defensive?

His feelings have been swinging all over the place for the past few minutes, and the more he thinks about it, the more he starts honing in to the smaller details.

His muscles keep clenching and unclenching.

There’s something coiled in his stomach, curling tighter and tighter the shallower his breaths get.

And the itch on his face is becoming less of a humming throb and more of a screaming pain.

He prods the slash on his cheek, wiping the stream of what he’d assumed to be blood off with the flat of his hand. His fingers come back with a coat of thick, black ooze. 

_Oh,_ he thinks, and even the voice in his head is a bit waver-y. _This has everything to do with the Blight._

He signs to no one in particular, just making a general declaration. _‘I got poisoned.’_

The body to his right goes unnaturally still. 

“Sorry,” Sidon says, “I beg your pardon?”

Link repeats himself. _‘Everything feels weird because your sister snuck something into my system when she clawed me and I don’t think I’m taking it well. I’m going to throw up now.’_ He tosses his bike aside and does just that, all while Sidon watches on with wide eyes. Link doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed. Everything is awful. 

“You need to go to the hospital.”

 _‘I don’t think they know much about magic toxicology,’_ Link fires back. 

The irony is sinking in now, smarting almost as much as his face is. Mipha had done this. Mipha, Hyrule’s beloved resident healer, with the soft hands and gentle smile, who’d looked him squarely in the eyes and swore she’d never hurt him. 

Tonight sure is full of unpleasant surprises. 

_‘I need to talk to Zelda,’_ Link repeats to himself. Only when Sidon’s brows furrow and the confusion crosses his face does Link realize how odd that must sound. She’s dead, after all. He’d told the town that she hadn’t lingered because initially, that’s what he had thought. 

The question is half out of Sidon’s mouth before Link cuts him off. _‘It’s a long story.’_

Sidon gives a resigned bob of his head. “Clarify later.”

 _‘Later,’_ Link agrees. 

The ground isn’t eager to let him take any steps; it bucks and shifts underneath him throughout the whole process, but he manages it with a grimace. He gives Sidon an unsteady glance. _‘I’ve got a home remedy to clear my head. I’m pretty sure I’ll brain myself if I try to bike to my place, so I’m going to get walking.’_

“That’s a funny thought.”

_‘What?’_

“Me letting you wander off into the night in your condition. It would be kinder to go ahead and let you jump head-first into the lake, because at least then, you would suffer less by dying faster.”

Link isn’t used to this kind of bluntness. Especially not from a member of the Ruta family. 

He’s stuttering on a comeback when Sidon grabs him by the wrist, leading him near the gravel lot where cars typically park. “I’ll take you home,” he announces. 

There’s only one car in the lot. A fancy one with a dark blue paint that’s so polished the slight shine it manages to retain in the rain still partially blinds Link. Its carriage is so small. He hates it instantly.

 _‘Not the—’_ his hands aren’t working right, they keep cramping— _’don’t put me in the car.’_

If this frustrates Sidon in the slightest, he doesn’t show it. “I am far too large to use your bike, let alone use it while carrying you,” he says, voice low and steady. “I can drive you to your apartment for this home remedy you claim to have, or I can put you over my shoulder and sprint to the hospital, which I’m assuming is closer. Your choice.”

Something wrenches in Link’s chest. He wants to writhe and bite and make this experience just as unpleasant for Sidon as it is for himself, but he hates the hospital and needs to talk to Zelda more. 

He gives a furious gesture towards the car. 

Sidon helps him into the backseat without much fanfare, putting his pack to the side, tucking his legs beneath him and making sure his head is pressed back against the headrest. 

Link couldn’t care less. The second he’s leaned against the upholstery, there’s a cold set of claws gripped around his heart and lungs, and another set clamped around his throat. He watches his arms and legs shudder like he’s actually feeling something beyond the numbness you’d get from sitting in a pond full of ice water for too long, and the rain is pounding through the windshield, through Link’s blood and flesh and bone, making his eyes rattle in his skull. He is going to die in this stupid two-ton death trap.

The trunk of the car opens, and is followed with the gentle scraping of Link’s bike being placed in the back. The trunk closes. The car shakes slightly as Sidon eases himself into the driver’s seat.

“Your address?” he asks, looking through the rearview mirror.

 _‘The same place it’s always been.’_

Sidon gives a slight nod. A few years back he’d had to swing by often enough to drop off books and ingredients that Mipha had forgotten at her house; he’s not a stranger to the place. “And you’re…”

 _‘Fine,’_ Link answers with a sharp flick of his wrist.

“Okay,” Sidon says with a tone that indicates he is well-aware that Link is not fine. 

The car shudders to life. Link gives up on trying to breathe normally, instead focusing on the shapes in front of him, working to keep Sidon’s back from melting into the car seat. And when Sidon tells him, “Almost there,” every few minutes or so, it almost helps. 

Almost.

* * *

Zelda isn’t around when they come stomping through the apartment’s entryway, meaning Link has to be rude. He points Sidon to the ornate golden necklace sitting on the coffee table and tells him to bang it against something. Sidon props Link against the wall, picks his way over to the living room, and reluctantly knocks the necklace against the table. 

Zelda jolts into existence immediately, puffed up like a cat, “You _know_ I hate when you do that, Link—!”

She stops. “...Sidon?”

Sidon can’t see her, naturally. He ignores her, staring instead at the necklace, waiting for something noticeable to happen. It’d be funny if Link’s insides weren’t rotting.

He clicks his tongue, and Sidon and Zelda look at him. 

_‘She says ‘hi,’’_ he tells Sidon. _‘Also please say you have something for ghost poison,’_ he tells Zelda.

“Uh. Hello, Zelda,” Sidon says lamely, as Zelda also says, “Pardon me, _ghost poison?”_

Link’s brain stutters on the two separate replies. This isn’t going to work. It’s not like he can sit down and give up, though.

 _‘Followed a tip from Sidon and found something that took me off guard,’_ he hurriedly explains, _‘and it turns out that the ooze that the Blight leaves behind isn’t exactly safe.’_ He tilts his cheek towards Zelda, who paces closer to inspect the wound. A glance at Sidon confirms he’s just as uncomfortable as Link thought he’d be—people don’t like it when he talks to empty space.

“This is an escalation,” Zelda frets. She’s always trying to touch, probe things, and Link’s face is no exception. “An active attempt at such a severe level of incapacitation is a first. If we let it run loose for too long, we’ll have even larger problems.” Her fingers try to grip at his chin and tilt his head further to the side. He huffs, and moves his head himself.

“Ghosts shouldn’t be capable of such a direct application of injury either. We haven’t seen it manifest before. What’s changed?”

Link makes eye contact with Sidon, who’s been watching the entire time. 

_‘About that…’_

Another wave of pain lances through him. He’s already leaned against the wall, but when his head drops down in frustration, Sidon reaches out anyways to keep a firm grip on his shoulder.

“Perhaps we should prepare that remedy,” he says.

He’s right, unfortunately. 

_‘Okay, okay,’_ Link surrenders. _‘Any healing rituals you can think of, Zelda?’_

She wavers in place, wringing her hands. “That isn’t my area of expertise.”

“Wait, you didn’t have a remedy in mind before asking me to take you here—?!”

_‘—Just do your best.’_

A twist of the lip, followed by a careful nod. “Okay, if you insist. But I’m no Mipha,” she replies, starting to make her way to the kitchen, and oh, the Goddess is trying to torture him tonight. But he holds his fingers still, prompts Sidon to the kitchen with a nudge, and gets to work on not feeling like death.

* * *

It’s a surprisingly simple solution, though it comes in two parts:

A springwater-salt solution for the wound, and a foul-tasting tea for his insides.

It gets to a point where Sidon has to commandeer most of the set-up process, because Link can only slosh so much boiling water around before the other gets impatient. He perches them both in the bathroom, with Link seated on the toilet, and Sidon on the lip of the tub. Zelda lurks in the doorway, studying Link’s every move. 

“A dried lizard-and-floral concoction doesn’t seem to be the most medically efficient,” Sidon comments, even as Link drains the last of his mug. He’s sloppy in putting it on the counter with a loud _clink_ , his mouth quirked downwards.

 _‘It’s magic,’_ he drones. _‘It doesn’t have to make sense.’_

“Even magic has some rhyme or reason,” Sidon counters. “Not that I would know it.” He diverts his attention to the bowl of springwater, soaking a washcloth in it thoroughly. “How are you feeling?”

Link shrugs. _‘Less like a corpse.’_ But still corpse-like to a significant degree—not that he’ll admit it.

Sidon seems charmed enough by Link’s answer; his half-smile is the warmest expression Link has gotten all night. He wrings out the cloth, holding it up. “Wonderful. Are we ready?”

There’s no point in waiting, is there? _‘Hit me.’_

“It will hurt,” Zelda chimes from the side. “Be wary of that.”

_‘I’ll be fine.’_

Sidon is slow with his movements. The cloth is warm and soothing against his cheek, and for a few moments, Link thinks that Zelda must have been exaggerating. 

Then the salt seeps in and the wound burns like a hot poker to the face, and that’s when Link gives up on the stoicism. He might cry through the first few swipes. He definitely swears.

Sidon keeps his palm on the nape of Link’s neck the whole time, an anchor in a roiling sea. 

“Almost done,” he hums, pressing the cloth back to the wound. “You’re doing fine.” 

And Link stews in his own pain, pointedly refusing to think about how much Sidon reminds him of Sidon’s sister with her careful touches and too-sharp fingernails and blue-black-blue-black eyes until exhaustion finally covers him in a deep, dark blanket of nothingness that he welcomes with open arms. 

_This is fine,_ he thinks, getting comfortable with the absence of everything. _I’m fine._

Then come the nightmares.

**Author's Note:**

> oh hey, a super long exposition chapter! wow! hope it was decent!
> 
> i've been trying to spit out this AU for the longest time now, and boy howdy is this going to be a journey into self-indulgence. chapters are gonna be few in numbers, but long. 
> 
> in terms of housekeeping/fun side comments:  
> \- sorry for typos! i do my best to catch 'em, but i'm sure one or two have slipped in there  
> \- "up the wolves" and "autoclave" by the mountain goats drove me through a lot of the writing process for this chapter!  
> \- i'm planning on clarifying ages here at some point, but in case you're curious now: link is 23, zelda _would_ be 24 but died at age 23, mipha is 24, and sidon's 21.  
> lastly, thanks so much for reading!


End file.
